


Dissention

by Kasan_Soulblade



Category: Final Fantasy Dissidia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2017-11-22 16:37:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/611921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kasan_Soulblade/pseuds/Kasan_Soulblade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were the warriors of light, the champions of Cosmos, but in the begining.. it all felt like a cosmic joke gone wrong.  After all, they were broken, without all thier memories and tantilizing clues that lead no where but they'd been called.</p><p>And to this call there was no choice save to answer.</p><p>Based on Dissidia 1 for the psp.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. All Accidental

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I don't know if this is going to be more than a one shot, or where it's going, but regardless I wanted to put this up. Enjoy.

Dissention: A Dissidia fanfic

Chapter 1 

All Accidental

 

They were like sky. Shards of misplaced sky sheathed in a mortal vessel. The color was a blue was yet wasn't, that was, at its center metamorphic.

A frozen of moment of change was caged within the rings of the iris, the hue lingered one tottering step before plunging into the black of the pupil. It was that last glorious moment before the storm settles in, stealing all the light, that ineffable second before the sun crests the horizon.

Grey but light, it has nothing of steel, nothing of edges, or cruelty.

Thus without steels normalcy and stereotypes, it recalls the viewer of the metal yet does not.

Such contradiction is the first thing she sees.

Blinking, weary, she is aware she's lying down on grass. The blades are cool and soft, but warmed from something above. She wrenches her gaze away from those eyes and its attendant pallid face to seek the sun.

And for seeking, she finds nothing.

Perhaps the sky is the sun in this world of contradiction. For the whole of heaven is filled with a soft illumination that while sun-like has nothing of that star's intensity.

And it's with that, she knows she's not home.

By her side, those eyes of contradiction are patient and wise, the face placid and smooth, and if it weren't for the fact that his face stirs ever so slightly when he draws breath, she'd think him little more than a statue of marble.

That's how pale he is.

Beyond, behind, the shade of a tree reaches forth, darkening the green and reds of her gypsy like attire. It should be touching him, his arm perhaps, surely his wrist as he sets his hand over hers and smiles down at her. Her fingers twine in his, and he gives her hand a little squeeze, reinforcing the soft and inane greeting of "good morning".

The dark thins before contact though, and when he moves, just enough to loose his grip on her fingers and pat her arm, the shade withdraws further.

It's as if the dark abhors him.

"Normally," he drawls, lips quirking as if in warning, then his smile widens, "Someone says good morning back."

"Oh, umm..." She pauses, flushes, and to that he chuckles.

There's something unsettling, in hearing a man laugh. Something hidden, buried, and she shivers at something half realized touches her, and its claws are surely diseased. As if aware of her distress he stops his chuckle. Toned his mirth down to a small grin. It's as if he's aware of how his soft, low, tones summon that discordant ghost. A demon whose only aspect she can remember is a shrill screaming howl.

Such is the sound of her nightmares.

"Let's… try something easier, little one. How about your name? Do you remember that?"

Her mouth opens, this is a safer question by far, but at the same time, isn't.

Because, even as she opens her mouth, and says her name, she's made aware of all the other things, the things she doesn't know. The "where"s, "why"s and "who"s behind the name. For one terrifying moment she wishes for her mother, for someone to comfort her.

But she can't recall her mother's name.

She doesn't say all that, doesn't speak of the terror….

Those eyes, ringed round by ineffable, born of contradiction, their owner absently spurning the laws of what should have been as easily as breathing, surely he must have understood.

"Terra."

"A beautiful name." He approves. "Mothering Earth, that's what it means, at least I've been told."

And in that moment, he confirms the unbelievable, all accidental...

He doesn't know either, his "when"s or "why"s or "what"s either.

"And what's yours?"

"Light." His grin is back, soothing her terror even as he confirmed he was living it.

All accidental.

"At least… that's what they call me. There's some nonsense about being a knight and all that, and a warrior of some sort, but…" He shrugged. "It's just Light." Then, an afterthought, tendered to the end of his sentiment, like an absent kindness. "And it's a pleasure to meet you."

"And…" And though she isn't sure if it is or isn't… she tosses out an absent. "it's… a pleasure to meet you too."

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: As I've only played a handful of the FF games, only the oldest actually, and only those that were released in the US way back when they originally came out on the SNES… So I can only base the characteristics of these characters off of what I've seen in Dissidia and Wiki research. I'll try to be as honest to canon as possible, but I've heard Dissidia does a good job in slaughtering the personality of the characters. Still, it's all I've got to work with, and I'll do the best I can.

Dissention

chapter 2: 

Fridge logic

They waked through a building, as modern and ho-hum as could be. Plaster walls, generic wide square windows, faux wood doors. The floor alternated between glossy white linoleum and fuzzy unnatural hued carpets with long tasteless rugs popped here, there, everywhere the unsuspecting could tread and trip.

Case and point, with a thud Onion Knight went down with a groan and picked himself up off the floor. It'd stopped being funny fifth time in, so his three companions didn't say anything this time.

But, if nothing else, the playful glimmer from… Bartz was it… from that other slightly older boy's eyes, assured and confirmed there would be comments made.

When things were saner, and they were out of boxes that played the charade of being habitable but were anything but.

As for the varied seats, the furniture was huddled about the alter which held a box. From the box lay a nest of glossy serpents that weren't snakes at all, but long and black and ended in things with rounded switches and circles that clicked when pressed. Following the serpent's head to the tail he'd found an circle anointed with a white "on" tab, and after pressing that…

_Clickity click click, tick tick, click clickity…_

For the Love of Holy… Onion Knight knew he never should have pressed that round span and he'd never ever do so again…

_Tickity click click clickity…_

Because, if he hadn't… well Tidus would have had other ways to amuse himself.

"Hey, Bartz, take a look at this! When you press this button the little red guy runs really really fast, like you!"

"Really?" Leaping over the back of the tan… fuzzy… sofa, Bartz popped into that convenient span that Tidus had left despite his sprawl. "That'd be something to see, I'm the fastest thing about, you know!"

"Oh yeah, watch this!"

_Ding ding…_

A click, deeper in tone, and not originating from the glowing box and it's dreaded "on" button made the Onion Knight whirl about, the monkey tailed guy… whatshis name…

"Hey, Zidane, take a look at this!" Tidus hollered, never mind they were only a few feet away and all…

Oh well, Onion Knight had a name now, he'd take what was given to him without asking and just try to be grateful. Anyway, the monkey tailed Zidane closed a door that had been imbedded in one of the plaster walls. It was a curious door that lead to nowhere fast. It exuded a chill, but no mist, or water, and there wasn't a whiff of ice mana to the thing at all. Regardless, Zidane had been poking about the contents for a while now, and the last subdued click was him finally closing the chilly no where door.

"Pretty." The monkey guy grinned, hugging to him a collection of fruit and vegetables. "But guess I've got?"

Like it was much of a guess, even a two year old could have figured out…

"Chow!" Bartz cheered as he hopped to his feet.

Tossing his not snake head to the floor, oblivious to how the buttons mashed on impact Tidus joined the crush, and Zidane happily passes out his food to one and all. All but pushed against the wall by the rush of his fellows, Onion Knight watches them dig into apples and oranges and the like. His stomach growled, and that helps him push his shyness aside, clearing is throat, the minute swordsman's noise caused Zidane to turn to him.

"Sorry little guy."

Never mind he'd told them his name was Onion Knight, they all insisted on calling him "Little guy" or "shortie" in Tidus' case. He'd of glared, made a scene, but he was hungry, nearly getting trampled by big lummoxes did that to a guy.

"Here ya go, feels kind like I'm supporting cannibalism and all but…"

To Onion Knights great un-surprise (after all, with an opening like that what else _could_ he have expected) Onion Knight was handed… an onion. White and chilled, its sides flaking in his gauntleted hands. Those edges crumpled, the vegetable's heart bruised to a bone white, as he tightened his grip.

"That's it?" Said Knight was avoiding thinking of the former part of his nominative, after all you could only abuse your name so many times and make so many puns before your sanity snapped.

"Well there were some green leaf things in there that I didn't like but…"

Salad, it was. Pushing past Mr. Monkey (see, he could come up with derogative names too, and bad jokes aplenty… but he'd never say them, wouldn't say them, it wasn't kind after all to belittle those about you and… and Holy he'd just made at joke at himself, Crystals help him…) he clinked and rattled to the room that wasn't, but was ever so helpful in keeping things cold.

A click all his own, and he pulled to door open, looking at a slew of green leafy things, lettuces of many hues, varied greens, and a myriad mix of texture awaited his perusal. The use of his sword, the flat of blade, and a little push to help it along, and he'd pulled open one of the cabinets. White plates just out of reach were above.

To that sight he smiled.

Salad it was, most definitely, and he'd eat civilized, unlike the others who were, by the sound of it, just eating form their hands, clustered about the glowing box like a gathering of light box worshipers.

He just had to get a plate down.

"You know, I gotta say, this is the weirdest dungeon ever." Bartz commented. "No monsters, no bats even."

"Well lit for a dungeon." Tidus noted, there was a few crunches, mercifully cutting off whatever inanities that were coming out of the young man's mouth.

Really, they all just seemed so... _stupid_. Of course, the knight who was boosting his ego up with his "I'm so superior than all of you idiots" internal dialogue was on tip toe at that moment, sword extended to its limit, arm burning from the effort, trying… so… hard… to.. push.. one… of

"You coulda saved the little guy an apple or something, raw onion tastes so… ick…" Tidus complained.

"Oh lighten up." Zidane was clearly smiling, his whole tone screamed it. "It was just a joke."

So… close… Onion Knight hopped a bit and was rewarded with a tink of impact, the plate lifted, wobbled, then the whole pile (not the upper most one like he'd planed) began to tip.

Uh oh.

"Your little red guy's running towards the edge." Bartz pointed out.

"What, oh no!" Tidus howled. He hopped to his feet, stomping on the snake head that wasn't all the while. "Stop little guy don't run to the edge!"

"He's going faster." Bartz chuckled. "Man he's fas-"

Throwing an arm over his eyes, staggering back, Onion Knight cringed and waited, and was rewarded by the chink a link of many a breaking plate.

_Doot do do do doo do doo do do do do…_

They pelted from the glowing box quick, Onion Knight gave them that much. He felt them there before he saw them, and since it'd look worse if he did what he wanted to do. Keep his arm over his eyes and wince like a little kid having get caught being bad and didn't want to face up to it. So Onion Knight dropped his arm and looked up into three concerned faces.

"You OK kid?" Bartz asked.

"Geeze, look at all that." Tidus whistled. "Did a number on the place huh?" Then the tanned man grinned, softened the blow with a smile. "Can't take you anywhere can we?"

"Seriously Oni." Zidane set a hand… it felt nothing like a paw, despite the helmet Onion Knight was wearing, he could tell the difference just by the sound and slant to the pressure being applied that the man had hands, not paws. "Next time, just ask for help or something, alright?"

Then, the hand that wasn't a paw, all expectations and logic aside, ruffled the plumes of his helmet.

"Umm.. Alright?" Onion Knight murmured, trying and failing, not to blush.

Oni… that wasn't half bad… His blushes deepened, but no one asked why, so he didn't tell.

"So, like I was saying." Zidane dropped his arm, draped it over the young swordsman's shoulders. "Some dungeon, huh?"

"Yeah, but… I don't think it is." Onion… no Oni, he tried the sound in his head, and found it not so bad after all, confessed. "No bats, right?"

After all, "Oni" was worlds better than "Shortie".

"Nope, no bats, no vamps, no mus."

"Ick, mus!" Bartz mimed gaging. "Hate them almost as much as I hate yah know... heights."

"Is Bartzie Wartzie scared of heights?" Tidus drawled, grinning wide.

"No.. I mean… ummm… Mus are evil!"

"Great save there Bartzie!"

Zidane laughed and Oni found himself grinning a little too.

"So, _like_ I was saying. No treasure chests, lamest loot I've ever got, _never_ got food before at the dungeon's end… I'll happily vote this the lamest adventure start ever." Zidane drawled, dropping his arm and nudging Oni to the fore. "So let's say we leave, 'less you want that little red guy to do more running for you."

"Nah." Tidus looked to the glowing box, its screen declaring "Game Over" in bright red letters on an paradoxically equally gloomy black backdrop. "I'd rather do my own running, thanks. I just liked the clicking sounds."

"Gotta agree there," Bartz was grinning, he ribbed Tidus as he passed the young man by, all were sauntering to the door they hadn't opened, the one by the window that had now view save a wash of white light. "The clicking was neat, but now that it's done, let's go on a real adventure."

"Starting in a real dungeon?" Oni asked.

"Yep, with bats." Zidane chimed, opening that last door, white light greeted them all, alluding to a landscape beyond that had neither up or down, heaven or earth. All in all it was the perfect unknown.

"And mold, animate mold the cousin of all mus!" Tidus cheered.

"And why does there have to be mus or their cousins at all in this?" Bartz grumbled.

"Because." Oni offered. "It irritates the blazes out of you."

And to that final quip they stepped into the light. Leaving the "lamest dungeon ever" far behind. But before they left Zidane tossed something small and red over his shoulder, slowing only enough to make sure Oni caught it before being lost to the light. Wonder touched the boy's face, that and a smile. Such a small little thing the boy wasn't aware he was wearing it, not until after he took an absent bite out of the apple he'd been given.

And even then, though he knew of it, it didn't fade, only widened, a few crunches later and he let the rind fall. Then, whipping his face with the back of his hand he hastened to catch up.

They were on an adventure, all of them were.

_Whoever they were._

_Whoever he was._

That might have bothered him. But for now, in this moment, none of that mattered. Oni had something to do, and people to do it with. He had an adventure to find, and perhaps, with luck, a dungeon, a real one, and not this boxish parody of a home.

"Guys, wait for me!"

He raced to the light, and found a free fall without end.

 


	3. Edge of Twilight

Dissention

Chapter three

Edge of Twilight

There were shapes in the light. Hints of buildings lost in the dwindling rush of colors. Behind them both, the slowly morphing collage of colors darkened.

Such was the nature of twilight.

"Light's growing scarce."

It was the first words his companion had spoken. They'd met on a road that wasn't, nodded, and without consent or conversation both picked the same road. It was a beaten path of dirt filled with a hundred jags courtesy of rebellious grass, pebbles and the like. In the growing shadows though, nature seemed, different, distorted into a state of synthetic. The lines of darkening shade and failing illumination washed out the earth and criss-crossed it in black until the whole of the path seemed grey and those lines resembled the edges of cobles.

Déjà vu was just not the word.

Checking a shiver, the blonde swordsman pulled the edges of his black coat together. Wolf headed talisman catching the chancy light and glinting red about the fangs.

"I didn't notice." The brunet, his odd sword gun hybrid winking in the fading light. "Never would have if you'd never said so."

Sarcasm just seemed a mutual language between the two.

Cloud cracked a wry smile, grunted, and thus they continued in comfortable quiet.

Despite the light's failure to really illuminate the path before them, they pressed on. Seeking without words between them both to confirm the obvious, they both were looking for a place of color. Sought more than this sketchy illumination that was the present.

For this light was fickly, a thing of edges, and was more than content to try to lose then.

 _Trying_ was the key word; both were legends in their own worlds, both legends and legendary for certain traits. Stubborn was one of those traits, obstinate was perhaps its degree. Or perhaps the degree of their stubbornness just made all language fail to gauge it.

Lips pressing into a small smile, one that was missed as he'd turned away. He turned away when his smiles were at their best, something that had irritated… someone. Someone who he couldn't remember, the gun blade wielder chuckled.

"They called me the lion of the savannah. The lone hunter."

Sensing a roundabout stab about his hair, the black clad blonde ruffled his riled locks.

"That your name?"

"Nope."

Conversation quota for the two used up for that time, they pressed on, treading miles in a twilight, with shadows looming and swelling about them, bringing images of buildings to mind. There was a familiarity to it all, the tread, the twilight that seemed unending, and the buildings that were not.

"So." Brunette turned to blond, lion charm at the hilt of his weapon clinking with each motion. "You got a name?"

The laconic, "never met someone who doesn't," just said it all.

Smile turned into laugh, a short barkish sound that recalled lighter days, or at least alluded to them.

For they weren't allowed memories, not either of them, not yet.

"I remember… or I think I do… some kid, a little punk." The brunette tossed the words out there, not caring if they meant a thing. "Said that the one time he heard me laugh, worlds would end."

"Really?" Somehow, the blonde with his wolfish knick knacks wasn't surprised. "Well, world's not ending, but look there."

And, since it wasn't doing much of anything, he unslung the massive piece of iron over his shoulder and used its edge to point at the golden flicker to the side. Before them, the road they treaded had split, and to complete the cliché where the light lingered… the path looked distinctly untaken.

Or was it untreaded?

Regardless of what literature they were butchering it was an accurate assessment. The road was rough, and ragged, the illusion of cobbles was broke as the grass ran rampant and pebbles were exchanged for sizable rocks and the "trail" surely rambled.

"Guess that's our cue." Sheathing his blade, the blonde didn't smile, his expression was placid like usual. "Should we mosey on over?"

A shrug was the lion of the savannah's response, that and an amused. "I don't mosey, but I'll go first."

"First's all yours, I don't want it." The blonde chuckled, lingering at the branching path he snapped up a bit of summer golden grass that served both as walls from the span they traveled before and stretched onward to frame the path they were leaving behind.

Souvenir gathered he slipped it into his pocket. Coats were useful that way.

 


	4. She Is

Dissention

Chapter 4

She is…

"Hey there little guy."

For the record, he was not the "little guy" in question, rather his companion of the moment was content to wend his way through there surroundings striking up conversations with random pieces of flora.

Having traveled with odder (or so he thought, it wasn't something as sure as a memory, just a hunch really) companions before, Cecil wasn't going to say a word.

So he didn't, he simply enjoyed the quiet and pieced together the fragments of his recollection. Trying, and failing, to apply them to the mystery at large.

He'd woken to color, a palette of reds with green threads of grass licking at each flowers flamboyant bloom. The whole of the floral encrusted mass swayed in the gentle winds, nearly choking them both in the wash of natural perfumes. A... well whatever it was he was… he'd drawn on some unrecalled resolve and endured. Eventually he'd been able to think through the all encompassing sweetness to really take stock of heaven.

For… for some reason… heaven seemed the most important thing of all.

There was no moon, so the source of the winds was a mystery. No sun either. Only a blue sky that best suited a thespians fancy rather than reality.

So, it went without saying that the clouds above were white clouds, fluffy, and inspired the idle to thoughts of chocobos.

He squinted, through the white glaze that covered the eye holes of his armor, he half sat up, ignoring the pain each motion cost him. There were other things he also had to ignore.

His companion's salutation upon his awakening… That was most definitely one of those "things".

" _I've never seen a monster like you before. Wasn't sure, if you were or weren't so I figure I'd wait for you to wake before I… did anything."_

He'd tried not to flinch, held back a stab of anger that the younger man's assumption had caused. The other man was a walking armory after all. A little prudence could go a long way. Much farther than an ounce of prevention, after all there was no cure for a sword through the throat… In the few second's Cecil had been awake he had spotted at least six weapons, and one reflection he was sure the man was carrying more than that.

"My name is Cecil, I am a man. Not a monster. Monsters don't have names."

"Could of fooled me."

Sheathing the blood red blade in his hands the white clad man shrugged, then as an afterthought had offered a hand to the black armored man. Cecil had taken what he was given, eyes widening in shock as he saw how badly his hands were shaking.

Acting as if he hadn't seen –though he must have- the younger swordsman smiled.

"Has anyone mentioned that armors a mite… creepy. Name's Firion by the way, and though it's probably an assumption on my part, I'll say it's nice to meet you."

"After thinking I was a monster?" Cecil grumbled.

"Well, last I checked," the man cracked a grin that was part grimace. "Monsters don't have names." Pulling his companion so he was sitting up, the younger man nearly let go in shock at the startled hiss on Cecil's part. That sound wasn't a testament to some sore spot, or a cramp, but agony. Firion skipped his initial plan of offering to pull the other to his feet and let go only when he was sure the other man could sit up without falling over. "What in Holy's name happened to you?"

"I don't know." Here Cecil had shrugged and the pain that had been throughout now settled across his shoulders. "Do you know?"

"Not a thing. Save my name, oh, and I like roses."

To that enlightening bit of knowledge Cecil had sighed. Today looked to be a long day indeed.

And it was, thought there was no sun to mark the days passing, or its stages. They seemed trapped in an eternal moment of a sunny spring day (minus the sun of course). Having looked over the field of red flowers he'd sought to journey around them taking care to mind the thorns and brambles of course. Thus, he'd talked the pathless span, keeping the bit of black that was his companion in the corner of his eye. There was no purpose to his wanderings, save that he strived to return with a grin more often than not.

Another return, another smile on the younger man's part, and that was enough to make Cecil forget his pain for a few seconds. Thus Firion returned quicker than he should of, though younger than the black clad knight he wasn't stupid.

Not by a long shot.

Smiling wide, a chuck of white rock in his hands, Firion waved his find about like it were precious.

"Look, I found something!"

It was the sixth "something" thus far, or perhaps it was the seventh "find" today.

Cecil grunted his acknowledgement. He'd stopped articulating greetings with words the second one in. And could his face have been seen under his helmet's guard Firion would have seen what he suspected. The other man's pale face was pallid, his brow was slicked with sweat.

A rock, too smooth and perfectly square shaped as a square. Had he not been amongst this proverbial bed of roses (save there were no roses about, merely flowers that seemed akin to them) he'd of suspected it to be a brick. But bricks were the province of houses, castles perhaps, and vanities like paved roads.

Here, there were no roads, certainly no castles, for though not perfectly so the land was a mite… flat and its rises and falls were tame things.

"You know what I think?" Firion asked, still smiling.

And as expected, for this was a game, between the two of them, a curious one that they'd both agree on all accidental.

"What?" The Dark Knight nipped the bait before him.

"I bet this is.. it's…" A pause the boy's face crinkled and the beads that dripped from the edge of his his turban-ish hat twinkled in the light. "It's a ruin, from a castle. Some great capital… a city of light and…"

And Cecil closed his eyes, listening to conjecture and theory that was utterly unfounded. Such was the living dream he found himself in, that he took up fancy, listened to it as if it was real, hoping... praying… that it would summon something. Something more than a vague sense of "Oh that's right" or… as was more often than not the case… a flash of amusement that wasn't attached to anything deeper than the moment.

"Hey!"

A thud as the stone fell from uncaring hands, a sense of falling. He was falling, ah well, he'd half anticipated this when the earth had become so treacherously tilted last tale back. He was jarred from his apathy by hands. Arms wound about him. Warmth all about him, not from above.

He cracked open an eye, the view was curiously blurred.

"Seriously Cecil," A grunt the arms shifted so they held his back better. The world no longer was listed to the side, all drunkenly. "You have to say something when you're gunna clonk out on me, alright?"

"Alright…"

But it wasn't this was… repentance… salvation… There was something familiar about pain, freeing, being freed from it?

The details, the whys of why such a sensation was so familiar, so vial were another mystery within this mystery.

There came on odd sound, a soft "shink" as a blade was drawn then stabbed into yielding earth. His eyes opened wide at that though with his helm the boy… no young man… could never have seen the difference. Another sound more of a "chink" as a spear was stabbed into the earth.

"Sit up a little longer on your own, alright?" Firion ordered.

Loyal… duty... honor… One of those must explain this odd… feeling. This odd… obligation. He'd been asked, so he would, there were no other options.

So he sat up, for a while.

Rope was wound between the two imbedded weapons, a passable chair with the earth as it's seat. He was eased back then, a gentle push and the task of support was taken off his shoulders and he reclined for a while. White eyeholes tipped to the side, ads his head lolled just so. He stared without seeing for the longest time into a red mirror of sorts. He smiled as realization came to him then, though the boy'd never see it.

_Child… takes good… care of… his sword._

Very good care, though red it was polished. Though old it was cherished. It gleamed with a mirror finish and for a while Cecil stared at himself, for a while really realizing what he was seeing.

Then he saw, and stiffened.

"You alright?" Firion asked, almost dreading the expected response.

The clipped, terse, but oh-so proper _"Well I think I'm dying, you should run along so I can do so privately now…"_

But that never came. The expected. Hand shaking, the man traced the edges of his helmet with a black gloved hand, wondering at the steel and its attendant barbs with one digit. Cecil was acting as if he'd never seen it before.

Or wasn't expecting it to be there.

Finally, after the silence went on for a long time, and the shaking got much worse…

"Help me…"

Firion just stared.

"My… reflection… I'm not… I want…" A sigh, akin to a man's last breathe but it wasn't.

Thank Holy for that.

"I want to see my face, without this thing. Like my reflection… I want that… to be true, just once."

Firion nodded, beads glinting like gold in the steady light from above.

"I... not as a monster, I don't want to look like one, not anymore."

"I'll help." Firion murmured. Bending down, he reached and finding the straps of leather belts that held the helmet so close, it surely smothered. Even as he loosened and worried at the steel that bound it all together, the weapons master had to wonder how the man breathed. The fit was _that_ tight. "All you had to do was ask.

One click, another, a tug. He pulled up and felt something give way.

Silver hair fell haloing a man so pale, with features so fine they seemed celestial.

"I…" Firion swallowed. "I'm guessing you're not from around here." He whispered. Looking down at the man before him he suddenly, violently, hated the bitter features, those warped monster faces, that were stamped over the mans' breastplate and shin guards. The contrast, between angel and devil, was just that wrong.

"I don't really know, can't remember." Blue eyes glinted, some of their pain abating, amusement caused the man's lips to curl into a smile. "Does it matter?"

"We go to a place with a lot of pretty girls, yes it will. You'll have the better "been there done that" stories than me. How'll I get a date with you as competition?"

Cecil laughed, and with a grimace Firion set the helm aside, checking the impulse to throw it aside.

"Let's get the rest of this junk off… See where you're hurt. You have to be hurt and I'm not gunna hear a word against it." Lifting a limp hand, cradling it in his own Firion snorted. "Imp faced arm braces? Were you trying to say something when you got this forged?"

Loosening the metal bracers he pealed those off, noting the flesh underneath looked raw and irritated. Not infected, thank goodness. Working his way down he pulled off a gauntlet that really didn't want to come off, and struck by an odd impulse he pulled off the glove under the gauntlets as well.

Gold glinted about the man's finger, middle finger… A wedding ring.

"You… you're married?"

Cecil was sitting up on his own then, eyes wondering, his hand flexed as if trying to grab a thought. The gold about his digit glittered.

"I… I guess I was…" His face furrowed. "Her name… her name... was…" He fought, bereft of sword, magic beyond him, fatigue his only companion, he fought and his face broke out in a soft sheen of sweat as he shook under the duress of his battle.

"Cecil, don't you-" Firion pulled back, the man was shaking, and shaking in a bad way. "You need to calm down!"

"Name.. her name was… _is_.." He gasped the last, hand fisted; tears pooled, glimmered for one moment like liquid crystals, and then fell. " _Is_. Her name _is_ Rosa."

And, wonder of wonders, the black about his frame shimmered, shivered, and melted away like mist before the dawn. Between one moment and the other, one blink and another, the black armor and its attendant monsters were gone. In its place…

He looked like… like a paladin, like a holy knight smack out of legend… There was no dark about him, cool sky blues and lunar inspiring silvers. And to that sight, that fitting sight, Firion smiled.

The other man's shakes had stopped, and that was the best thing to happen today this far.

"Feel better?" Firion asked, smiling wider. He already knew, but what the hell, he'd ask anyways.

"Tired, but… a great deal better, thank you."

"That armor's bad stuff, probably cursed." Firion warned.

"Probably." Cecil sighed.

"So," Blue eyes that had been closing roved up, and Firion widened his smile. Forgoing manners and the like he just plopped on down, took a seat in front of the recuperating man before him. Didn't want the guy to get a crick in his neck and all that. "What's she like?" Only the helm remained, a black bur on the side of a perfect spring day. Well there were ways about _that_. Firion kicked aside the offensive metal and stretched, leaning forward even as Cecil reclined back on his impromptu seat. "Your Rosa?"

"I don't remember, not all the specifics..."

Unsaid, but certainly not unfelt, was a sentiment. _All the more reason to try to remember_. And, it gave hope, hope that he'd recall something _wonderful_.

"Just one line, one thing about her..." The man took a deep breath, a knight now, truly, without even a stroke of dark about him. Firion decided he liked that look the man wore. It was soft, gentle, and complimented his small smile so well. More important than a look, he liked the man before him. No real reason, just a hunch they'd get on well and a desire to make the hunch into reality.

Seeing the bait, it was Firion's turn to nip, rules of the game and all.

"Well, what line?"

"She… she was the inspiration of all those silly sayings. About perfection and angels and the like. She was the reason they were ever made."

"Sounds like she's some girl." Firion whistled.

"I… She is." To that truth Cecil smiled, and it was like the sun coming up.

 


	5. An aside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This is part riddle parts talling tactic as I've half of the next chapter done and am struggling to complete it. Suffice to say, enjoy my filler chapter and see if you can discover who and what is reffered to from the composition of below.

Dissention: An Aside

_For us the skies hold no angels,_

_the land is still._

_silence unfolding from the darkest root from the darkest tree strangles_

_and the clouds of dark birthed in fear forbade even the stars_

_Sin in guise of man rears than rend the hand witch feeds_

_spreading scarlet seed, arresting the heart in it's cage of bone_

For us the heavens harbor no angels

the land is hushed, teetering upon a twilight of a kind

Between dark and ight, as all twilights go

the fractured factions catch the light just so...

before the fall.

In this final moment between fancy and fantast the land's very heart goes still.

Silence unflufls from quickening shade and lingering light.

This silence a scion brithed of darkest root of darkest tree

Above blotting light from sacred Moon -oh holy Moon!- clouds lack than night forvbade even the stars their shine

Smoothering in onix hands of stagnant clouds.

The wind itself falls still.

Under soundles skies, life carried on, and Sin disguised as mand rends and rears and a scarlet rain is left behind.

Feeding the seed that arrests the heart in it's cage of bone. For the still heart is a lost heart, and time shall not turn back at any's behest.

Thus aching for what is lost, we aspire, conspire

seeking heaven, intent turns and though purched upon ineffable heights of unhallowed depths a search ends

a throne of glamor upon the back of ruin.

The call drwons upon unmoving wind and stilled wing,

"For Empire!"

Though names may change, lines are the same.

Nothing holds, blood nor border, only bitter irony remains.

When the clowns caper, slaves pick up the crowns and an age of degration begins.

And by sevenths the sky falls down.

And the world smothers.

As does the curtian, and actors all.

For all assembled, do take your place upon this shrouded stage of fragments.

Mouth your lines, bare your souls.

It's all been done before.

 


	6. the Other Side of the Coin:  A cache of canaries

A cache of canaries

 

 Birds were never meant to sing in sync. 

The idea of sync was a decidedly human conceit, a vanity on par with coincidence, circumstance, and fate.

Yet there were many things that were in curious concert. Things that should have been the preview of nature.

The memory loss, what they forgot, what they recalled.  It was all the same.  Names, they were given theirs, a few choice pieces of geography, a sense of those places being home…  Then, nothing.

Not until they saw their other half, the other side of themselves.  Then all that had been suppressed snapped to the fore, burning recollection into the mind via animosity.

Suffice to say, the first sighting was normally a bloody thing.  An event capped with a mad rush, blades drawn, half understood threats (for as they remembered, the other side did too… adding a delightedly blessed touch of chaos to the whole, something their liege surely enjoyed)  , the crash of impact, and the frenzy of murder.

Well attempted, they were the villains in this, after all.  Their ends weren’t ever meant to be glorious.

But perhaps there was a bit too much suddenness to their fall.  Which might have been why they were doing things differently this time, or so he assumed.  The Emperor’s “Intriguing” meant something, its intent applicable to interpretation, listener beware.

Shoulder to shoulder, some with rude shoves, most with rude words, they clustered about an orb whose curves were sometimes angles, sometimes, arches, and were ever changing.  That change only apparent when one looked back, started upon realizing that what they’d seen and what was didn’t match.  Sometimes it was something major, a flaw, a swirl of embers about an icy facade.

Other times it was simply the deep certainty that something was wrong.  The “what” remaining devilishly elusive.

He spent more time musing over the intricacies of change, the fluid flaming spontaneous sphere held more allure than the screaming, cackling, fury about him.

Dangerous that. Considering they were armed with blades and magics, but a low effort Holy (barely a hum and hiss of illumination to tip his hand) deflected the sharpest blade of Gaia and the resulting wave of silver energy was easy enough to duck under.

Granted the “I think I dropped my Gil pouch” might have been a bit overdone, but few of this rag tag batch of misfits were discerning.

And for those who were, none had garnered enough respect for him to honestly care at their wondering.

As an Emperor snarled and seethed, a near silent display compared to the others.  A relief, really, when considering the jester’s squealing shrieks, that was still ongoing.

He wanted in silence, in curious detachment for the orb to reveal the source of his discontent, and wondered if its expression would be of a frigid bent.

There’d be a poetry in that, a difference from all the others that smoldered or flared.


End file.
